Ferguson keen to keep United on attack

If Manchester United open their Champions' League campaign tonight amid defensive question marks and unflattering statistics, they were problems scarcely acknowledged by a bullish Sir Alex Ferguson yesterday.

Since their last match in the European Cup – the quarter-final defeat by Bayern Munich – United have won three games out of 12 to add to figures that show one clean sheet in their last 16. They have, moreover, tasted victory in just one of their last six Champions' League fixtures, facts that might give Lille, a club whose only honour is the French Second Division title, some hope at Old Trafford this evening.

And yet, fresh from seeing his side concede four goals at Newcastle, Ferguson, who spent last season urging his players not to fall prey to gung-ho attitudes in Europe, might have taken his script from Kevin Keegan, his neighbour at Maine Road. Manchester United would keep on attacking, come what may.

"We don't mean to bore you," he laughed. "We have hit the very heights and we will keep going until you all have a heart attack. We are looking at the positives; some of the football we played on Saturday was absolutely marvellous. No team in the country can play as well.

"You have to enjoy some of the football we played on Saturday; we made nine chances in the match and Paul Scholes could have had a hat-trick. That's something we should be concentrating on because in the modern game you should be trying to create chances."

Ferguson said he was not surprised by Newcastle's relentless attacking, arguing they were "bound by their history and support" to go forward. But against Liverpool in the Charity Shield, Fulham, Aston Villa and at St James' Park, United have been behind within the first five minutes and you wonder if, domestically, they are losing their fear factor.

Mikkel Beck, part of the Lille squad that arrived in Manchester yesterday, was a member of a Middlesbrough side that Ferguson acknowledged gave United more trouble at Old Trafford than most. "This Manchester United team is not necessarily better than the one I knew when I played in England," the Dane said. "Their team does not get shaken up enough by their opponents which is a shame because their weakness is their defence."

Having made no fewer than four attempts to sign him, Ferguson will not drop Laurent Blanc, who at times seemed badly exposed at St James' Park, although he hardly deserved to be lectured by Nikos Dabizas, who said the Frenchman "struggled with the pace of the game". This evening will mark Blanc's debut in the Champions' League, a competition which remains his one blazing ambition to win.

However, while acknowledging "he is not Maurice Greene," Lille's coach, Vahid Halilhodzic, said: "What he lacks in pace he makes up for in passion and the reading of the game; you cannot judge a man after one or two matches especially when he has just arrived."

For Lille, a team Ferguson called a "French Ipswich", having qualified for the Champions' League immediately after winning promotion, playing a side their coach believes is capable of winning the European Cup might be a daunting experience but Halilhodzic said: "We are not here to be dazzled by the shops and stars of Manchester but to play a match without being overawed."

Nevertheless, Lille are likely to be cautious. Their French league campaign has been in absolute contrast to Manchester United's; four wins and no defeats in seven unextraordinary games with eight goals scored and three conceded.

They, at least, have not been having heart attacks in the old coalfields of northern France.

Manchester United: (4-4-1-1) Barthez; G Neville, Blanc, Johnsen, Silvestre; Beckham, Keane, Veron, Giggs; Scholes; Van Nistelrooy.

Lille (4-5-1): Wimbee; Pichot, Gygan, Fahmi, Ecker; N'Diaye, D'Amico, Cheyrou, Boutoille, Bakari; Bassir.

Referee: R.Temmink (Netherlands).